Apache does lots of little things that add up to big importance

Published 7:00 pm, Saturday, April 3, 2010

Midland's population is expected to rise this summer as Apache Corp. prepares to open its new Permian Regional office, most likely in late summer.

Apache will be receiving the Hearst Energy Award for Company Performance at a dinner Monday, April 5 at Midland Center.

John J. Christmann IV, who was appointed vice president, Permian Region, will be one of those Apache employees relocating to the Tall City.

"I am excited to be moving out there and creating a regional office worthy of Midland," he said.

He estimated 37 Apache employees will be transferring, coming from offices in Houston and Conroe, Tulsa and Calgary. Christmann said he has just begun hiring from the local workforce. "Most are professionals, with a handful of technical staff," he said, adding that he expects the new office to employ a minimum of 70 when it opens.

This region has been home to an Apache production office for a region that give the company gross operated production of 48,000 barrels of oil and 140 million cubic feet of natural gas per day from 8,000 wells, 110 waterfloods and six CO2 floods. The Permian, he said, holds some of Apache's longest-lived assets.

Christmann said Apache's holdings in the Permian Basin, which he said stretch from southeast new Mexico to the Permian Shelf, Central Basin Platform and Delaware Basin, stretch back to its MW acquisition in 1991.

"When you look at that acquisition and how we've grown from there," he said. "We've had a production office there and now we recognize the Permian Basin is such an important part of our production, it made sense to operate from there."

The Permian Region is being broken out from Apache's Central Region, which included East Texas, the Permian Basin and the Anadarko Basin.

Plans for 2010 are to run five rigs, Christmann said, "and we anticipate keeping them operating for the remainder of the year."

The region has a capital budget of just under $400 million to fund development and exploitation projects.

"I will be forming a new venture and exploration group," said Christmann, who joined Apache in 1997. "We plan to venture out of our traditional asset base."

The Permian, he said, has plays the company likes but right now it is trying to understand its assets. The company plans to utilize horizontal drilling and completion technology "and hopefully generate our own plays."

Apache, he said, "is a large independent but we're a company that's not afraid to do a lot of little things that, incrementally, have big importance."

"We have to keep that entrepreneurial spirit," he continued. "It comes down to adding up lots of little things. You have to pay attention to detail."

Apache, he said, has a decentralized mindset but "I know where I report to and where my paycheck is. We have accountability through management but as long as the results are good, we get to keep doing what we're doing."